Douglas Alexander: I think that I got my hon. Friend's point. He speaks common sense when he recognises that a United Kingdom needs a united Parliament. Notwithstanding the sentiments expressed by some Opposition Members, now is not the time to play fast and loose with the British constitution in terms of maintaining the integrity of the House of Commons. I have some sympathy with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin). This Sunday, I will take my place at the Cenotaph to recognise the extent to which Scottish and English soldiers, together with soldiers from right across the United Kingdom, fought together to defeat fascism and then came back home and worked together to build a national health service. Those are huge achievements from the past century of the United Kingdom and I believe that we will have equally great successes in the coming century.

Bob Blizzard: May we have some basic standards laid down for local authorities to follow in their care for the elderly? Suffolk local authority's supporting people commissioning body is currently taking away funding for community alarm systems when all the indications are that these are a good value for money means of supporting people to follow the body's basic aim of preventing older and vulnerable people from getting into a bad way. I thought community alarm systems were part of the draft national strategy. Is not withdrawing them incompatible with the whole concept of supporting people?

Phil Woolas: The hon. Lady's comments sadden me, because she seems to fail to understand the difference between the need for health authorities to balance their books—which we all have to do in any walk of life—and the issue of cuts. Like local councils, the NHS has received extra funding year on year from this Government. Of course, that is not the same as the demands that are placed on councils, and I would be surprised if the Association of Directors of Social Services did not put forward demands for extra money, as it always has done. We listen to those demands carefully and work with the Local Government Association to identify cost pressures and, where possible, relieve them. But the hon. Lady cannot paint a picture of reduced resources, as the opposite isthe case.

Ruth Kelly: That is a complete myth. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that following the attacks, the Government tried to engage with the Muslim community and set up a process called the preventing extremism together taskforce. Action has been agreed on all but three of the 27 recommendations that were addressed to Government. Indeed, the Government are taking forward action to develop forums against extremism across the country, have developed road shows for Islamic scholars in which 30,000 young people have already participated—the target is 100,000—and, together with the Muslim community, have promoted Minab, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body, to regulate mosques and imams.

David Miliband: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the single payment scheme administered by the Rural Payments Agency. The House will recall that in my written statements of 9 May and 5 July and in my oral statement of 22 June, I said that the well-rehearsed difficulties in the administration of the 2005 SPS would create challenges for delivery of the 2006 scheme, and I promised to keep the House informed of developments. On this occasion, as on every other, I would like to reiterate the apologies that I have offered already to farmers on behalf of my Department, and my commitment to remedy the problems.
	Today I can report progress with the 2005 scheme, and plans for the 2006 scheme. However, the interim chief executive of the RPA and I are clear that much more needs to be done to learn the right lessons from the National Audit Office's recent report and to build on the helpful guidance that I am sure we will see in the forthcoming reports from the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Public Accounts Committee, the Office of Government Commerce and the Hunter review.
	As I mentioned in my written statement on 5 July, the total amount to be paid by the RPA for the 2005 scheme will not be known for certain until the last claim is completely validated and necessary corrections are made. However, the latest estimate at 3 November puts the figure at £1.528 billion, of which more than £1.516 billion—in other words, 99.2 per cent.—has now been paid. Some 110,244 claimants have received a full payment and a further 4,756 have received a partial payment and are awaiting their top-up.
	The combined total of 115,000 represents 98.5 per cent. of the revised estimated total claimant population entitled to a payment of 116,661. All but 50 of the claimants still awaiting any payment are currently calculated to have a claim value of less than €1000. Those 50 are all difficult cases, involving issues such as probate or business liquidation, which would be challenging in any year. Dedicated teams are in place to deal with those cases, and the other outstanding payments, as soon as possible. Similarly, on hill farm allowance payments, some 95 per cent. of claimants have received a full or partial payment, and a dedicated team is exploring all avenues to make the outstanding payments as soon as possible.
	During October the RPA moved the bulk of its processing staff to detailed validation of the 2006 claims. Initial validation of those claims has been undertaken over the summer and has gone relatively smoothly. The same can be said of the 2006 round of eligibility inspections. However, the difficulties involved in completing the 2005 claim processing have inevitably impacted on the 2006 payment timetable. I am sure that everyone in the House wants claims paid in full assoon as possible. I understand that, and the new management of the RPA are dedicated to build stability and predictability into the system so that full claims are delivered in an efficient and timely way.
	However, the interim chief executive has reported to me that he cannot guarantee that the agency can deliver full payments within the payment window for the 2006 scheme. Neither he nor I believe that it is acceptable to expect farmers to wait until next June or beyond for payments. I have therefore agreed with the RPA a challenging formal performance target of paying 96.14 per cent. of valid 2006 claims by 30 June 2007, and it is determined to do all in its powers to deliver on that. However, in addition, I have also decided to pursue a partial payment plan.
	Our aims can be simply stated. First, we want to maximise the number of payments to farmers that arrive on a timely and predictable basis. That means making full payments where possible and partial payments where necessary. Secondly, we want to minimise the risk of late payment penalties and disallowance. Thirdly, we want our decisions this year to help the RPA to establish a new and sound footing for the delivery of the single payment scheme in the future. I have therefore agreed with the RPA that where full payments are not possible in the early part of next year, partial payments should start in mid-February for eligible claims above €1000. The RPA estimates that the process will take around three weeks. Payments will be made for not less than 50 per cent. of claim value. This reflects the level that EU regulations permit without diverting significant resource away from, and therefore delaying, work on validating claims for full payments.
	Needless to say, I will be keeping the situation under close review, but the interim chief executive of the RPA has set out for me, and for Lord Rooker, the basis on which he is confident that partial payments can be made, and we believe, in part on the basis of the partial payments experience in May this year, that the money will be delivered.
	The single payment scheme and its administration has caused distress to farmers. The only way to make good on this year's problems is to improve the management of the system so that confidence is rebuilt. I have said clearly that this will not happen overnight, but I believe that the staged approach that I have set out is the only one that is prudent and responsible, and I commend it to the House.

David Miliband: Let me go through the eight or nine points that the hon. Gentleman made. I am sure that we are completely united on two things. The first is that none of us underestimates the problems or hardships involved. Secondly, about a third of the way through his questions, he asked whether farmers were entitled to full payment. Of course they are entitled to full payment, and it is the Government's job to deliver it to them in an efficient and timely way.
	I fear that the hon. Gentleman is labouring under a misapprehension about the £131 million referred to in the National Audit Office report; he suggested that it was somehow responsible for, or related to, cash cuts. We are using what is referred to, in Government budgeting, as a non-cash provision, which means that the Government are making allowance for future claims on the sum. It is designed to be a prudent provision, and it precedes the normal audit work done by the European Union. There has been no such demand for £131 million, and I do not think that it is in the interests of hon. Members on either side of the House to talk up the potential for penalties further down the road. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the £131 million referred to in the NAO report is not related to the £200 million deficit with which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working.
	The hon. Gentleman asked why I described the96.14 per cent. target as challenging. I did so because the chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency reported to me that there was no chance at all of the RPA delivering full payments to all farmers by the date proposed. The hon. Gentleman is right that, as I have said on many occasions in the House, 96.14 per cent. is the minimum level below which late payment penalties are incurred. He asked about Ireland and France, and they, of course, are paying 50 per cent.
	The hon. Gentleman asked why we are not paying80 per cent. I referred in my statement to the importance of the EU regulations on the subject. He will know that over the past 10 or 15 years, hon. Members on both sides of the House have thought it important that the EU should have proper regulation for the disbursement of EU moneys, especially in relation to the common agricultural policy; we have been arguing for that. I am sure that he does not want to query the provision of that level of rigour.
	The reason for specifying 80 per cent. this year is that when the Agriculture Council discussed the issue in 2003, and considered the first year of the new scheme, which is 2005, the Commission said clearly that it would regard 2005 a transitional, exceptional year—a year in which it would be flexible about how partial payments were made. We used that flexibility to deal with the circumstances that arose last May, which all of us wish had not come about. The reason for the 50 per cent. target is that that reflects the EU regulations, to which I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House are committed.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about starting the payments in mid-February. The advice from the RPA is that it will take the agency about three weeks to deliver all the payments. He asked whether mid-February plus three weeks means payment by mid-March at the latest; that is a calculation that I and others can make, and we are happy to confirm that that is the advice from the RPA.
	Finally, I assure the hon. Gentleman that nothing in my statement was meant as a "boast" about the performance of the RPA or the Department, and I would certainly be surprised if that is how it came over. The blow to farmers has, of course, been the most serious result of the failures of the RPA, but there is also the blow to the reputation of the Department, and it is very important to put things right as effectively as possible. However, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that farmers have said to me, time and again, that the most important thing about this scheme year—the 2006 scheme year—is that they are not given promises that are not delivered on. That is why I put such stress on timeliness, and on the confidence of the RPA's chief executive; when he says that partial payments can be delivered in February, he knows that they can. I hope that farmers will recognise that it is right that we should proceed step by step, secure in the knowledge that each step is a safe step. That is better than raising their hopes only to dash them later.

David Miliband: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support—or perhaps "understanding" is a better word than "support"—for our decision about the 50 per cent. I can certainly confirm that 50 per cent. is the minimum threshold. As I said in my statement, the RPA will pursue full payment where possible and partial payment where necessary, with a 50 per cent. minimum payment. The relationship between the banks, farmers and the farmers' representatives is well developed, but I will certainly check that that is the case. It has not been suggested to me that the banks need the heavy hand of Government to help them, as good systems are in place.
	The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the investment in stress networks—£300,000, I think—is well made, and we will keep that under review. I addressed the hill farmers' allowance in my previous statement, when I said that it would continue to be paid separately for 2006, and I addressed the issue of disallowance in reply to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice). The European Commission has not suggested levels of disallowance—it has not suggested any disallowance yet, having just begun the auditing process. The Government and the Department have acted at every stage to balance interests and discharge their responsibilities to the EU as well as to farmers. As I said, it is not in anyone's interest to suggest otherwise, for obvious reasons.
	As for Johnston McNeill, the matter was addressed at length by the permanent secretary in her recent Select Committee appearance, and has been dealt with according to civil service procedures. An offer has been made to Mr. McNeill, and we await his reply. As for performance bonuses, I understand that they were given to front-line staff who were largely responsible for disbursing, for example, partial payments in May, in circumstances that none of us would have chosen. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would want those people on the front line to be tarred with the brush of incompetence, as they worked hard to deliver those payments.

David Miliband: I gather from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) that my hon. Friend has indeed raised this issue with him, and we are certainly looking at all such cases. I can assure the House that although final figures are not yet available, overpayments are in the single million figure. That is obviously higher than anyone would want it to be, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we will pursue all such claims very carefully and rigorously.

Edward Garnier: From the remarks that he made in his opening statement, the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that several thousand people have still not been paid either fully or at all for 2005, and it seems that several thousand will not have been fully paid by June 2006. A number of those are in my constituency. Will he recognise, as I am sure he personally does, and will he encourage those in the RPA to recognise, that this is not just a financial or a statistical issue, but a human problem? Those are farmers with families to feed and tax bills to pay, so the matter requires his personal attention. I believe him to be a man of good will and I trust that he will be encouraged by the partial support, at least, that he has had from Opposition Members.

David Miliband: I did not hear what the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) said from a sedentary position, but it involved the word "exhaustion". I do not know if he was referring to me or to the RPA inspectors.
	The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) raises an important point. Farmers' land plots do not recognise some of the geographical lines that exist in our United Kingdom. I will find out for him the nature of the discussions that take place between the RPA and the Welsh authorities. The Welsh authorities are taking an historical approach based on early-1990s payments. For reasons that we can go over another time, the English authorities are not taking that approach. I will drop the hon. Gentleman a line, if I may, about how the English and Welsh authorities are co-ordinating their activities.

Geoffrey Cox: Surely we should start from the premise that this is not the Government's money but farmers' money, and it is the Government's duty to get as much of it as possible to them as quickly as possible. The Minister has said that there is nothing in the regulation that prevents more than 50 per cent. being awarded as an interim payment. Can he tell the House what will be the target amount for farmers' interim payments and what criteria will affect the decision on their quantum?

David Miliband: Of course I recognise that. I said in my statement that we sought to balance of a variety of factors: first, getting timely and efficient payments to farmers; secondly, minimising the risk of late payment or disallowance; and, thirdly, getting the Rural Payments Agency on to a stable footing. I would have thought that those three factors would be acknowledged throughout the House. Frankly, a December payment cannot be justified on that basis, and February—three months earlier than this year's payments—strikes the right balance. I have tried to explain clearly the basis on which that date was chosen.

Patrick McFadden: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	The amendment makes explicit what was implicit in the draft of the Bill that left this House. The ability to remove sanctions for doing or not doing something in the course of an activity does not permit the removal of sanctions from unlawful and criminal activities such as drug dealing or people trafficking. In other words, the amendment makes it clear that only lawful activities would be affected by orders carried through for better regulation purposes. It is therefore a safeguard against inappropriate use of the order-making power. It would ensure that any change to sanctions for unlawful activity could not be delivered by an order under the Bill, but must be made through an alternative route.
	It is possible by order to repeal offences, or to reduce or remove sanctions for offences, which affect the carrying on of any lawful activity. This is not new; it was possible under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 as well. It has been shown to be a useful power in delivering better regulation and the provision will ensure that offences can be repealed and that sanctions can be reduced or removed when they are considered no longer to be targeted or appropriate. The Bill also carries over the ability under the present Act by order to replace sanctions with new sanctions, or to create a new offence that is punishable on indictment up to a limit of two years imprisonment.

Patrick McFadden: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	I do not want to detain the House on a Lords amendment that appears to have the agreement of the Opposition parties. It makes explicit what was previously implicit in the Bill, and that will be true of a number of the Lords amendments before us today. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asked me to provide examples. The Bill is not the sole means of achieving our better regulation effort. He will know that, alongside it, intensive efforts have been made by the Departments to look at their burdens and to come up with simplification plans. Those plans will be published shortly.
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Lords amendment: No. 2

Patrick McFadden: I beg to move, That the House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Andrew Turner: I am sure that it would. The Minister did say that other Departments were drawing up lists of amendments and deregulatory measures that they intended to introduce, and I look forward to hearing about those in more detail in the forthcoming Session.
	The Bill was designed to solve what the Government saw as a problem with the Regulatory ReformAct 2001, namely, that it was not deregulating enough. Only 27 regulations were scrapped under the 2001 Act. That is a poor performance by any measure, but I am sorry to say that I think that it a sign more of the Government's failure than of the failure of the Act. The Government were good on rhetoric and poor on delivery. Now, it appears that the Minister is belatedly becoming slightly better at delivery and is hoping that his ministerial colleagues in other Departments will become better at it as well.
	In their impatience, the Government decided thatthe best way to get rid of red tape was to abolish parliamentary scrutiny. I do not think that that was right, and I warmly welcome the amendments made to the Bill in another place.

Rob Marris: I welcome the clarification in the amendments. The extract from "Halsbury's Laws" and the maxim that he read out today, as he did on Report, were entirely clear. However, Lords amendment No. 29 says:
	"In subsection (2)(e) 'function of legislating' has the same meaning as in section 5."
	Clause 5—it will become section 5 on enactment—has no definition of "function of legislating." However, clause 5 places conditions upon "function of legislating." Will my hon. Friend explain why Lords amendment No. 29—not that he can speak for the Lords—does not talk about the "function of legislating" being subject to the same conditions as in section 5? That is the direction that the other place wishes to go and the direction in which we should be going. There is a risk that the Bill as amended would be unclear, and I do not think that a Minister, or anyone with delegated power under the Bill, could change the working of clause 5.

John Redwood: What worries me about the amendment is that it requires us to trust Ministers. I suspect that we can do nothing but trust Ministers, given the structure of the legislation, but I feel as though I am being offered a lucky dip present, of the sort one gets during the season of goodwill. The packaging looks very nice, and I am told that it will really thrill me, but I have the awful feeling that when I get it home I will discover something completely inappropriate and not commensurate with the investment made in it.
	My confidence in Ministers has not been increased by the deliberations on the Bill that I have witnessed. We will legislate, in all probability, with no knowledge of what Departments will propose by way of deregulation. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us a little more about how Ministers will use the powers in the amendment, which makes it clear that it is Ministers and their creatures who will have the power. Why should we trust Ministers to deregulate under this power, when this team of Ministers has introduced 4,000 new statutory instruments every year? Why should we trust Ministers when they have given in in countless negotiations in the European Union and then brought the results before this House? How can Ministers use their powers to abate that flow if they are not dealing with the prime source—the legislative machines in Brussels and Whitehall?
	I am sure that the Queen's Speech will be full of Bills, which will lead to many more statutory instruments and regulations. Will the Minister have any chance to use the powers in the amendment to arrest that tide or will we see more of the same? We heard that there were 27 items that were removed under the previous legislation. Over a five year period, that is a small fraction of 1 per cent. of the 4,000 new SIs every year. That shows that the Government are not serious about deregulation.

Patrick McFadden: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	Many facts and figures are cited in this area, some of which shed light on the debate and some of which do not. It is alleged that there are 4,000 new regulations a year. The number of Acts of Parliament passed each parliamentary Session is broadly of the same order of magnitude under this Administration as it was under the last, as is the number of SIs introduced each year. The latter number has remained between 3,200 and 3,500 for the last decade and more.
	Let us not pretend either that every SI is a burden on business. More than 95 per cent. of SIs have no impact on business. Many of those have only a local or temporary effect, such as road traffic orders. It does not shed light on our debates to pretend that 4,000 new regulations on business are passed each year.
	As for those regulations that may be removed, reference has been made to the regulatory reform orders passed under the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. Some 30 RROs have been passed, but we should not make the mistake that that means that only 30 items have been deregulated. For example, the fire RRO replaced about 50 pieces of legislation with one new, risk-based regime. That shows that one RRO can have a wide impact.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) asked about Lords amendment No. 29, which moves the definition of the phrase "function of legislating". However, that does not imply that the restrictions in clause 5 on conferring that function always apply. I hope that that clarifies matters for my hon. Friend.
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Lords amendments Nos. 3 to 6 agreed to.

David Heath: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is why it is so perverse of the Government here and now not to say that and restate that this procedure will not be used to amend the Scotland Act. However, I am sure that they will say that, when the Minister responds to this debate.
	I want to make it very plain that if the Government do not agree to amendment (a), it will be our intention to press a Division on that specific consequential amendment, should Lords Amendment No. 9 be accepted by the House. It is clear to us that what comprises a constitutional matter—a provision "of constitutional significance", as the Bill will say—is a matter that is objective; it is not a matter for the decision or opinion of a Minister. But because of the arrangement of the terms of the clause in which this is inserted, it is made to be subsequent to the decision of the Minister as to whether he "considers" it to be of constitutional significance.
	Our amendment would remove that subjective test, and replace it with an objective test. What is the practical significance of that? First, it would give reassurance to many people in this country that their constitution will not be tinkered with by means of a fast-track procedure, beyond the scope of this Chamber. Secondly, it means that the action of a Minister in deciding to use this mechanism would be justiciable. It could be argued that it is already, as it is open to judicial review. But the difficulty with saying that the Minister's decision will be open to judicial review is that what is open to judicial review is the means by which the Minister reaches his decision; what is open to such review is whether that decision is a reasoned opinion of a reasonable man or woman. That is not what we are saying. What we are saying is: is it the right decision? That is an objective test, and one that the court can quite properly adjudicate on. It is quite possible for a Minister to come to a mistaken decision by proper means—by proper reasoning. That would still allow for there to be faulty procedure.
	In practical terms, I do not think that our proposal would have a huge effect, which is why I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept it. It is a perfectly sensible amendment. It provides for an objective test. He says—in good faith, I hope—that there are no circumstances in which a Minister would deviate from that objective test in any case. Therefore, in practical terms, it would make no difference to the operation of the Bill. However, it would provide the reassurance that future Ministers—I am not thinking of Ministers of this Government, or of this Administration in any way—who might be tempted to use the mechanism in an improper way, cannot do so. That is our precise intent in tabling this amendment, and I commend it to the House. It would improve the Bill, and I very much hope that the Minister will now do two things: state in terms that the Bill will never be used to amend the Scotland Act 1998, and accept our amendment.

Patrick McFadden: Of course, the Minister's judgment is debated by Parliament as part of the process in the Bill. His judgment is not the end of the process. The Government are firmly of the opinion that the right balance is the one that the UK has adopted in the past: that is, it is for Ministers and Parliament to judge whether an order makes provision of constitutional significance. If amendment (a) were included in the Bill, on the other hand, judges could override both Ministers and Parliament about whether an order is of constitutional importance. As someone in the other place put it, that would
	"elevate judicial accountability over political accountability."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 3 July 2006; Vol. 684, c. 21.]
	We do not want to go down that road.

John Redwood: It is a great pity that once again we do not have enough time to have a civilised, sensible debate about an important underlying issue, over-regulation, and ways in which it might be tackled.
	I support the Lords amendment, and it is right that there should be as much of a parliamentary check as possible in a world in which Ministers normally command majorities and can therefore rightly carry their wishes in a democratic format. It is good that it has been recognised that we need to—
	 It being two hours after commencement of proceedings Mr. Deputy Speaker  put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Orders[9 February, 15 May and this day].
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Remaining Lords amendments agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I inform the House that privilege is involved in Lords amendment No. 55 to the Armed Forces Bill. If the House agrees to the amendment, I will arrange for the necessary entry to be made in the  Journal.
	New Clause
	 Lords amendment: No. 51.

Derek Twigg: If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I shall develop my speech a little further.
	As I said, the Government believe that the time is now right to remove the dishonour that taints the memory of those servicemen who were executed, which is clearly still felt by their families today. We should never forget the courage, resolve and sacrifice of those who fought for this country in the first world war.Of course, we will remember them during this Remembrance week. The legacy and impact of the first world war on so many families is difficult to overestimate. My grandfather, Thomas Twigg, of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, was awarded the military medal for repeatedly going out under machine gun and mortar fire, acting as a stretcher bearer with another, and rescuing many wounded comrades, himself being wounded in the leg.
	The poignancy of the situation deepened when, in 1917, coming back from the front line, he met his brother James. It was the last time that he would see him. James was badly wounded, and died a few weeks later. Every year, on Remembrance Sunday, from where I stand at the Widnes war memorial, I can see the name of my grandfather.
	I mention that story to make a point. Neither my father, with whom I have had many discussions about the issue, nor I believe that granting a pardon to those who were executed in any way besmirches the memory of my grandfather or my great uncle.
	The Government believe that closure can be achieved by the amendment, but I stress that we are not calling into question the actions of the officers who were responsible for discipline and who found themselves faced with what I am sure Members agree was a most difficult and unenviable duty. The amendment should not be seen as a judgment of the way in which they were doing their duty.

Derek Twigg: My hon. Friend has made an important point. I know how much work she has put into her campaign on behalf of her constituents.
	The pardon covers all service men executed for offences such as desertion and cowardice committed between 4 August 1914 and 11 November 1918. Regrettably, we have not been able to list individually the names of those receiving the pardon, as our surviving records are not sufficiently comprehensive.

Derek Twigg: The hon. Gentleman reflects a common view, not least among many ex-service men and veterans. It was a great pleasure to visit his constituency recently to support the opening of the war memorial. I know of the tremendous work that he did to establish the memorial, along with the local community, and it was an excellent day.

Henry Bellingham: The key to this decision has obviously been the shell shock that was beyond the control of those soldiers. Is the Minister aware that of the 346 who were shot at dawn, five were shot for disobedience of a lawful order, including a member of The Royal Anglian Regiment who disobeyed four separate lawful orders on four separate occasions? In fact, he deserted before he even faced a bullet. For disciplinary reasons and, I believe, quite rightly, he was sentenced to death. Why should those people be pardoned as well?

Derek Twigg: As I have said, there is an issue relating to conviction for wrongdoing and, obviously, disciplinary procedures. But let me return to what we are proposing in relation to the ultimate sentence, execution, and the removal of dishonour from that sentence.
	Subject to the will of Parliament, we will place a formal record of the pardon alongside the relevant court martial files held in the National Archives, where they survive. The record will be visible to anyone viewing those files in the future. I believe that it will play an important part in helping to restore the memory of those service men.
	In Committee in the other place, my noble Friend Lord Drayson explained why the Government had announced their decision to seek a statutory pardon during the recess. We made our announcement at the earliest possible opportunity following completion of our policy review, so that we could begin the necessary consultation and drafting of an amendment. I am sure the House will agree that once we had reached a decision, and given the age of some of those campaigning for pardons, it was only right for the Government not to delay further on this important matter until another opportunity arose in the legislative timetable. For the same reason, we intend the pardon to take effect as soon as the Bill receives Royal Assent.
	The subject of pardons is highly emotive. I know from my postbag that the public feel passionately about it. I also know of the considerable interest that Parliament has taken in the matter, demonstrated by the number of Members who are present today. It is right that I should pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), and to all other Members who have campaigned tirelessly for a pardon for first world war soldiers. The family of Private Farr—who have been strongly supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty)— and many others have been part of the campaign for pardons, and I salute the role that they have played in the process.

Kevan Jones: Will my hon. Friend give particular thanks for the work done by John Hipkin? John was one of my constituents when I was a councillor in Newcastle city council. He worked tirelessly on this issue, and was tenacious not only in his campaign but in gaining publicity for it. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise the work that John has done.

Gerald Howarth: I join the Minister in paying tribute to the soldier from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment who has tragically lost his life in Iraq. I am sure that the Minister reflected the views of the entire House in sending our condolences to his family.
	No one can approach this subject without being moved by the terrible human tragedy involved in the cold execution of soldiers by their brothers-in-arms in the midst of one of the most epic battles in history. No one has done more than the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) in bringing the issue before the House, as he has done persistently and tenaciously for the past 13 years. I suspect that in the fullness of time this will come to be known as the Mackinlay amendment.
	As Colonel John Hughes-Wilson wrote in the journal of the Royal United Services Institute:
	"There can be no one who is not moved by the chilling reality of soldiers, often young men who had volunteered to serve their King and country, being tied to a stake, blindfolded and shot by a firing squad, sometimes by comrades from their own regiment. It is an image that has entered the national consciousness and which tugs at the heart of any decent person."
	Having said that, it is our duty as parliamentarians to look as objectively and sensitively as we can at the facts and to assess whether the action proposed by the Government in granting blanket pardons is correct, as that inevitably will have the effect of exonerating those who may well be deserving, but will also include those who, by any judgment, are not so deserving. In particular, I submit that we need to exercise great care in applying today's standards to the conditions and mores of a century ago.
	The facts are as stated by the Under-Secretary. As the Secretary of State's predecessor, the current Home Secretary, pointed out to the House on 24 July 1998, between 4 August 1914 and 31 March 1920, approximately 20,000 personnel were convicted of military offences for which the death penalty could have been awarded. That does not include civilian capital offences such as murder. Of those 20,000, something over 3,000 were actually sentenced to death. Approximately 90 per cent. of them escaped execution and 306 were actually executed. Each and every one of those is a personal tragedy for the soldiers, their families and their descendants. However, it is just1.5 per cent. of all those charged with a capital offence.
	Given that this measure is the brainchild of the Secretary of State, many hon. Members will be surprised that he has decided not to present the arguments for bringing it before the House, but has left it to his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, a brand new Minister. Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to explain why he has chosen not to—[ Interruption.] The House will note that the Secretary of State does not want to answer.
	What has struck me as being so curious in this case is the speed with which the Secretary of State, who freely acknowledged that he approached his new position with virtually no experience of Her Majesty's armed forces, rushed to a judgment so soon after taking over. Given his lack of experience and the fact that he had to brief himself on the workings of the MOD at a time when we are conducting two major concurrent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, how could he find the time to assess an issue that deserves very careful consideration?
	The Secretary of State's predecessor had undertaken just such a review in less hectic times. As he said in his statement to the House in 1998:
	"The review has been a long and complicated process."
	He reported that he had reviewed every aspect of the cases, including the medical evidence and the legal basis for the trials—field general courts martial. In respect of the medical records, he said that there was no implicit or explicit reference to any nervous or other psychological disorders. The review had also confirmed that procedures for the courts martial were correct, given the law as it stood at the time. He concluded:
	"However frustrating, the passage of time means that the grounds for a blanket legal pardon on the basis of unsafe conviction just do not exist. We have therefore considered the cases individually."—[ Official Report, 24 July 1998; Vol. 316,c. 1372.]
	Many are questioning how the Secretary of State came so swiftly to such a contrary position to that of his predecessor, a noted historian who had considered the issue in great detail.

Gerald Howarth: The hon. Gentleman, with whom I have had the pleasure of serving on the Defence Committee, knows me well enough to know that he will have to wait, for my speech is designed to be taken as a whole.
	Many are questioning how the Secretary of State came to such a contrary conclusion to that of his predecessor. Did he consult his predecessor before making his eye-catching announcement? Shall I give way to the Secretary of State? Has he found evidence that was denied to his predecessor? The right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) said in a debate earlier this year that he had found no new evidence. I can only assume that the Secretary of State has found none either.
	Has the Secretary of State obtained compelling new legal advice from the Attorney-General, or from anyone else? Clearly not, according to the noble Lord Drayson, who explained in another place
	"It is clearly not a traditional prerogative pardon. Unlikea prerogative pardon this measure does not quash convictionsor lift sentences ."—[Official Report, House of Lords,12 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 430.]
	We are entitled to ask what it does do.

Peter Bottomley: I am interested in my hon. Friend's speech. Is the matter not summed up by the Lords amendment, which refers to
	"recognition as victims of First World War".
	Does my hon. Friend remember previous junior Defence Ministers answering debates in the House who were pretty well mauled by the House as a whole, which was arguing for recognition such as is being proposed this evening?

Gerald Howarth: I am acutely aware of the sensitivity of the issue. The right hon. Member for Islwyn said that he hoped we could find a solution. He was not able to do so when he was in the Department. Clearly, there is an issue, but we have to consider whether there are downsides to the proposal. Ministers have repeatedly asserted that they are not aiming to rewrite history, but many fear that this will create a precedent and are in no way reassured by the familiar Whitehall mantra that there are "no plans" to extend the pardon to other campaigns, as Lord Drayson has said.
	Is it really beyond belief that others shot for desertion during some other battle will not become the object of a further campaign? Or that other nations might not seize upon this precedent to demand apologies for acts of war? How would Ministers like to be the subject of future generations' judgment on the management of the Iraq war, including their decisions on preparation, deployment and tactics—judged not by today's standards, but in circumstances and according to values that we cannot yet anticipate?
	The decision
	"could create precedents for the future and it cannot but have the effect of impugning the judgment of the people who made those very difficult decisions at the time. It cannot but have the effect of revisiting history, which is very dangerous, and putting the gloss and judgments of today on decisions made in conditions which we cannot in our time and at this distance make proper judgments about." —[ Official Report, House of Lords,12 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 430.]
	These are not my words; they were the words ofLord Ashdown in another place on 12 October. Undoubtedly, it was an extremely fair point.

Ben Wallace: The hon. Gentleman listed several offences for which people would be pardoned. He left out the offence of mutiny and sedition, for which two or three of the soldiers on the list were executed. That offence is not linked to cowardice and the Army Act 1881 makes no mention of shellshock or cowardice. That offence is severely damaging to troops in the field, so is he concerned that those found guilty of it will also be pardoned?

Andrew MacKinlay: I have been in Parliament for 14 years, and this evening's debate will probably turn out not to be the most important of my political career. However, supporting this amendment is certainly my proudest moment in the House of Commons. I hope that the House will forgive me if I explain why, as that will buttress the case for the amendment.
	First, though, let me say that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence framed and introduced the amendment in a moving and sensitive way. In addition, I very much welcome the initiative of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, whom I congratulate without reservation. As we have heard, the measure will grant pardons to soldiers executed in world war one after being charged with crimes such as cowardice, desertion, sleeping at their posts, throwing away arms and hitting a superior officer.
	For me, this is a very important personal occasion, and my arguments have both spiritual and temporal elements. Spiritually, I was reminded as I prepared for the debate of the words of psalm 130:
	"Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O lord.
	Lord hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication."
	I believe that there has been a cry from heaven for this wrong to be remedied, and that is what this House of Commons will do this evening, on behalf of the nation.
	On the more practical side, I must tell the House that soon after I was first elected I went to Tynecot cemetery to look for the grave of one of the soldiers executed in world war one. At that stage, very little had been written about what happened, apart from one very good book by his honour Judge Anthony Babington, and the great work entitled "Shot at Dawn" by Julian Putkowski and Julian Sykes, which details all the executions.
	I wanted to place on record my recognition of what my studies of those executions had taught me, and I put down an early-day motion calling for the men to be pardoned. To my astonishment and surprise, hon. Members right across the House displayed enormous and immediate support in wanting to add their names to the motion, and extensive interest was aroused around the country.
	I understand that some hon. Members may be hesitant about pardoning those who were executed, so I hope that I can offer them some reassurance. Although some people oppose the pardons, the measure is overwhelming popular around the country. That does not necessarily make it correct, but that popularity has been shown in the support that has been evident in all parties and in consecutive Parliaments. It has also been evident in support for the Bill proposing the pardons that I have introduced six or seven times while I have been in the House. I welcome the initiative of the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary; we need this measure now.
	I want to reply to Conservative Members. They are entitled to a response to their arguments. The Bill that I introduced six or seven times did not include mutiny.
	I welcome the amendment because time is now short. I want to deal with the question of whether the measure at this time is still appropriate. I believe that it is, but it will not be for ever. I regret that a Conservative Member shouted out earlier, "What about Agincourt?" As he did so, I will respond to that point. Agincourt demonstrably is history. The first world war is still a live and relevant issue for us, because each and every one of us have known and loved veterans of world war one. Some are still alive today. The immediate dependants of the executed men are still alive today. The issue cannot be dismissed in the way that people might dismiss the American civil war or Agincourt. Referring to Agincourt was a poor shot, and I regret that people have said it.
	The issue is still very relevant. Judging by my postbag and, I suspect, the postbags of other hon. Members, people still see it as relevant. Their letters may refer to their dad, who never spoke about world war one, but towards the end of his life did so and said that he was on a firing squad or saw people suffering from shell shock. That supports the view that pardons should be granted.

Andrew MacKinlay: I believe that it is a one-off. It is such an outstanding matter and injustice is so grave. We have the opportunity to heal by accepting the amendment. I have shared with the House the fact that this is a proud occasion for me. If I have achieved nothing else in the House of Commons, I shall be proud if the amendment is accepted tonight and receives Royal Assent tomorrow. I see it as a one-off.
	In the Bill that I proposed to the House on seven occasions, I included the options of a blanket pardon or a tribunal of Commonwealth judges to look at each case. I mention that tonight because I am confident that a tribunal would have concluded the same for each case. I say this in response to the legitimate point raised by Conservative Members. People say, "You are surely not suggesting that all these were good men." I believe that a tribunal would have concluded that all the trials were flawed, according not to the rules of today but to the rules that applied then. The rules of natural justice have not just been invented. The rules of natural justice required then, as now, that a person should be able to prepare a defence, call witnesses and be properly represented. Every trial was flawed on those counts. Furthermore, no one was given the opportunity of appealing against their sentence. In none of the trials were the rules of natural justice applied.
	The point was also made that 2,700 people were sentenced to death but only a few were executed. I believe that that demonstrates how fickle was the decision to execute. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was like a raffle whether or not someone was executed, which then goes to the heart of the principle of justice. Justice has to be consistent and clearly understood. Those who were executed were simply unfortunate in the draw.
	Reference has been made to the Harry Farr case. It has been my privilege to know the widow and daughter of Harry Farr. A gallant lady well into her 90s, Gertie Harris, pursued her father's case with the utmost vigour. Certainly the indications are that, had the case come to court, the Ministry of Defence would have lost.

Julian Lewis: I entirely agree that this is a matter not of rewriting history, but writing history. However, the correct people to write history are historians, not politicians.

Keith Simpson: I am grateful to be allowed to address the House on this subject. I declare a number of interests. First, I am both a historian and a politician. About 30 years ago, when I was writing some books on the first world war I was lucky enough to interview several hundred first world war veterans. I followed closely the work of Julian Putkowski; many years ago, he and I sat in the Imperial War Museum scrabbling away together. He continued as a postgraduate researcher for many years and produced a series of books.
	Secondly, in 1998 I spoke from the Opposition Front Bench in response to the then Minister of State for the armed forces when we held the first parliamentary debate. After looking at the cases of the first world war soldiers who had been executed, he decided that all he could do was to issue a statement of regret. Finally, in January, I introduced a short debate in Westminster Hall on the subject, to which the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) replied.
	Almost every Member in the Chamber is wearing a poppy, and the debate about the executed soldiers has much to do with our national consciousness of the first world war—our guilt and our emotions. That war produced one of the highest numbers of casualties suffered by the British Army and the imperial armies. Our European neighbours had of course been only too conscious of such casualties; we had been fortunate enough never to have suffered to such a degree before.
	From a British perspective, the first world war has somehow been seen as not such a good war as the second world war, which was demonstrably between good and evil. The public's interpretation of the first world war does not stem only from folk memories of their fathers and grandfathers. In many ways, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) is correct; it is history, but near history rather than far. Both my grandfathers served in the first world war. Both were wounded, but they survived.
	Certainly, 30 years ago, it was possible to speak to many such veterans. As much as anything else, it all comes down to the fact that the first world war is seen through the prism of the film "Oh! What a Lovely War", and of "Blackadder Goes Forth", which features the caricature figures of General Melchett, Baldrick and others. In its last, most evocative scene, the whole cast, except General Melchett, go out into no man's land, and the scene is then freeze-framed. There is a powerful emotional element to the subject.
	It always struck me, when I talked to the highly professional members of the Army historical branch—I give them great credit for the work that they have done over many years—that the problem is that the record is incomplete, as Ministers know. As the hon. Member for Thurrock says, access to the files was limited for most people, so it is inevitable that there were conspiracy theories about that. The record is incomplete not because it has been weeded, but because of the nature of the war and the nature of some of the field courts martial. Some of the files on individual cases are quite thick, running to 20, 30 or40 sheets of paper. On Private Farr, there are some half a dozen sheets.
	I have concluded that it would be incredibly difficult to ensure a judicial review, in which judges consider each case in turn, although I know that the hon. Member for Thurrock and others were keen on that idea. Such a system would, ultimately, be unfair. I suspect that the judges would clear some people, but that in other cases they would say, "I'm afraid that under the rules that existed at the time, which carried the death penalty, some people probably should have been executed." However, there would have been a great tranche of cases in the middle, on which they would have said, "I'm sorry, but there's insufficient evidence; if we could call witnesses, we could decide." I reluctantly decided that, however logical the suggestion, that was not the way to go about the matter.
	I declare an interest: I have always believed, and still do, that the situation should be left as it is. I can understand why we politicians might want to take a view on past events; after all, the Prime Minister, very soon after taking office, issued a statement of regret about the Irish potato famine. To me, as a historian, that seemed a somewhat simplistic interpretation of what happened, but the Prime Minister had every right to do what he did, although I would have thought it best to leave the matter alone. I have sympathy for the families, and particularly for people who remember what went on, but although we have spent so much time and emotion on the subject—the hon. Member for Thurrock might say, "And so we should"—we tend to forget, marginalise or take for granted the actions of hundreds of thousands of men. Most of those who fought in the first world war were civilians, and not all of them were young—many were in their 30s and 40s; after all, incredibly, the overwhelming majority of soldiers who served in the first world war were volunteers. However, I shall not go down a discursive route and discuss the history of the amazing "pals" battalions, made up of volunteers.
	A significant proportion of soldiers were pre-war regulars, but after 1917 large numbers were, of course, conscripts, so not all soldiers were fresh-faced youths. We should remember that most of them, at different periods in their service, were terrified. When I have talked to veterans of the first and second world wars and of Iraq, and to soldiers in Afghanistan, I have found that they were motivated by many things. Because they are British, they are embarrassed to say that they are fighting for Queen and country, but they will frequently talk about their regiment. Usually, however—and there are hon. Members present who have experience of this—they were motivated by small-group loyalty, which basically comes down to a soldier's sense of being part of a team. Soldiers rarely work as individuals; they are a team, and that is how they survive. They survive because they are part of a team in a mortar section, running a heavy machine gun, or in an armoured fighting vehicle. In normal, civilian life, those team members might not get on well together, but as soldiers they work, live and die together, and if one of them decides to leg it, not only do they let the others down, but somebody else has to take over their duties.
	When I interviewed veterans of the first world war, I found that many were disgusted and horrified that soldiers had been executed by the authorities, but among others, I found a quiet anger that the well-known company shirker always managed to skive off at a difficult moment, which meant that somebody had to take his place on patrol and put their life at risk. That is a very fine balance, and I can only make the following plea: we have spent a great deal of time—obviously, public opinion is that it is important that we should—bearing in mind what happened to the men who were executed. Some of them did not deserve to be executed, some were traditional regimental bad hats, and some were frequent offenders; all were judged and executed under a law in operation at the time. We should also bear in mind the great mass of men who were frightened and frequently tempted to run away, but who, for many reasons, did not do so.
	I remember editing a book 20-odd years ago called "The War the Infantry Knew", which was largely written by a man called Captain J. C. Dunn. He was not a regular soldier; he had served in the yeomanry in the first world war, and won the distinguished conduct medal, then went back to being a doctor. He volunteered in 1915, when he was in his 40s, and served for nearly two years with the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He won the distinguished service order and the military cross and bar. His DSO was the result of a failed Victoria cross application, and he had had both Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves as patients. His diaries document his eventual breakdown; he later found that he could no longer trust himself not to duck when a shell came overhead. His main worry and concern was about showing fear in front of others. He recognised that the way to deal with what they call shell shock was to try to rest soldiers as much as possible. He had a hard-nosed view of desertion. He was one of only two regimental medical officers to give evidence to what was called the shell shock committee. The written evidence that he produced, which is in the Royal Welch Fusiliers museum, is the only evidence submitted to that committee that is still extant, as the evidence was weeded at some stage.
	I was fascinated by the fact that that man, who was in many ways very sensitive, and who was greatly admired by Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, firmly believed that the execution of men convicted of desertion was necessary, not only "pour encourager les autres", but because those people had let down their friends, and that was the most important element.
	The only option other than leaving well alone or judicial review is a blanket pardon. I do not agree with taking that course, but I understand why the Minister has done so. I use my words carefully: it is a political decision—I do not mean a party-political decision—such as that made by the New Zealand and Canadian Governments. I have no intention of voting against the Lords amendment, as it represents the will of the other place, but I must say that I do not think that it will bring closure, other than in a parliamentary sense. Debate on the subject will continue. On Remembrance Sunday, at least, we should all remember not only those men who were killed, but those who, like our grandfathers, survived, and did things that most of us would find incredibly difficult to endure.

Mike Hall: May I begin by adding my condolences to those sent by other right hon. and hon. Members to the family of the soldier from the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment who was killed in Iraq today? I wish to put on the record my personal thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). Several years ago, I was returning from France when I bumped into him. He had just been on a tour of the battle sites, and he told me about his campaign for men shot at dawn in the first world war. I am delighted that an amendment has been tabled that brings to fruition the work that he and other parliamentarians have undertaken.
	My grandfather, Private PW443 Thomas McBride, served with the 18th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment in the first world war. On the night of24 May 1917, together with Sergeants Till, Matthews and Ward, he went into no man's land in front of the Hindenburg line to dig a communication trench to the German front positions. They worked in full moonlight for three and a half hours under heavy machine gun fire from the enemy. Fortunately, no one was injured and those soldiers were awarded the military medal for their gallantry and service. Their commanding officer, Second Lieutenant Cecil Harold Wight, was awarded the military cross for supervising the work, and received a pension of five shillings a week.
	Fortunately, no one in the 18th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment was shot at dawn, so my grandfather did not face the prospect of being called to serve on a firing squad to dispatch summary justice. Of the 306 soldiers shot at dawn in the first world war who are the subject of the Lords amendment, 254 were privates, 15 were riflemen, five were drivers, one was a gunner, one was a drummer, one a labourer, two were sappers, one was a trooper, 4 were sergeants, three were lance sergeants, six were corporals, 11 were lance corporals, one was a second lieutenant and one a first lieutenant. All but two of the 306 soldiers shot at dawn were "other ranks" and non-commissioned officers. The most senior officer shot at dawn was Lieutenant Edwin Leopold Arthur Dyett, who was a volunteer reserve with the Nelson Battalion of the Royal Navy Division. He was the son of May Constance andW. H. R. Dyett of Rock Ferry; his father, too, was a Royal Navy reserve.
	Lieutenant Dyett was executed on 5 January 1917 at the age of 21, and he was buried in the Le Crotoy communal cemetery. In many cases, as has been said, the soldiers who were shot at dawn were suffering from shell shock. I was interested to hear about the shell shock committee in the speech by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson). In a war diary by a member of the 18th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, the first mention of the condition appears in June 1916, when it is recorded that men were suffering from shell shock—the diary does not elaborate further. Officers who suffered from shell shock were deemed to be not fit for duty, and were returned home, but that was not the case for other ranks. That is an important point.
	We are not close to understanding the full effects of shell shock, but soldiers who suffered from it were subjected to summary justice. They were not properly represented and they were not given leave to appeal. The morning after their court martial, they were bound, blindfolded and had a marker placed overtheir heart. They were tied to a stake and shot by12 members of a firing squad, usually from their own battalion. One soldier was given a blank to fire, so that no one could be sure that they had fired the fatal shot.
	Remarkably, the families and loved ones of the soldiers who were shot at dawn were told their sons had died as war heroes. Their were buried in Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries across northern France and Belgium where their names are recorded, and they are rightly "Remembered with Honour". It is fitting, therefore, that the House should do the right thing and remove the stain on their character.
	The full truth of the executions in the first world war has taken an awfully long time to emerge. My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock presented me with a copy of "Shootings at Dawn: The Army Death Penalty at Work" by Ernest Thurtle, who was MP for Shoreditch. The book was published in the 1920s, and the cases it highlights still make for difficult reading. Responding to an intervention, my hon. Friend pointed out that the Australian army did not impose the death penalty for battlefield offences. Anyone who has read Field Marshal Haig's diaries will know that he viewed that as a serious weakness that made it difficult to maintain discipline in the Australian army. However, the lack of a death penalty did not stop the Australians from playing a full part in the eventual allied victory in the first world war.
	I wish to turn to the case of Lance Corporal 13857 James Holland of the 10th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment, which was part of the 7th Brigade of the 25th Division of the 3rd British Army. Lance Corporal Holland was shot at dawn. On the night of 19 and20 May 1916, the Germans launched a heavy bombardment against the British positions at Berthonval facing Vimy ridge. At 5 am on 21 May, the bombardment intensified. At 3 pm, following a pause, the British front line was once again pummelled by intense enemy shelling, mortar shelling and tear gas. The 10th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment was stationed at the front line at Berthonval. In a four-hour period, 80 German artillery batteries positioned along a 1,800 m front launched 70,000 shells at the British positions around Berthonval in front of Vimy ridge. That was the heaviest enemy shelling of the war sofar. The British trenches were levelled and all communications were severed. The British artillery replied, but to no effect.
	At 7.45 pm, the Germans blew a mine under the British position, lifted their artillery barrage and directed it at the British support lines. At the same time, the German infantry launched a ground attack across the smashed British defences, and crossed our front line, where they met little resistance. The German infantry secured their objectives. The 10th Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment was tasked with holding the flank of the British position during the German onslaught. On 23 May 1916, the British counter-offensive to re-establish a defence line failed. The Germans anticipated the counter-attack and launched their own artillery barrage of heavy shells against the British lines. The British infantry ground assault scheduled for 8.25 pm was met immediately with German machine gun fire and repulsed before it began.
	On 26 May, the British high command decided that the artillery necessary to support a major offensive to regain our former position on Vimy ridge would be better deployed on the Somme so that our forces would be ready for a planned summer offensive against the Germans. The Germans began to dig in and fortify their positions. The British Army lost 2,500 men between 21 and 24 May 1916. The 7th Brigade ofthe 25th Division lost 637 men. At some time during the German artillery bombardment—the heaviest of the war so far—followed by a German infantry attack, Lance Corporal James Holland left his post. He was found guilty of cowardice by a court martial, and he was shot at dawn on 30 May 1916. He was the son of Mary and Samuel Holland, who lived at 16 Flower street, at Northwich in my constituency.
	Lance Corporal Holland is buried in the Ecoivres military cemetery in Pas de Calais. When my righthon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the Government's decision to grant the pardon, his announcement was covered by the  Northwich Guardian. It interviewed an Army veteran from Weaverham in my constituency. Eighty-eight-year-old Harry Littler of Walnut avenue, who served with the British armed forces for six years in the second world war, said:
	"It's worried me all my life. Anyone who has been on a battlefield would know.
	Sometimes those chaps didn't know where they were, never mind what they were doing. The sight of some of those poor wretches—some of whom had given their all—their nerves shot to pieces, having to face death by firing squad because of a decision by unknown 'red tabs' and branded cowards, in my opinion was an infamy."
	The Government have absolute support for what they intend to achieve in the Lords amendment.
	At 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and I will stand at the war memorial at Runcorn. We will do so in the full knowledge that we can pay tribute to those who have fallen in service of their country, giving their today for our tomorrow, as Parliament will have done the right thing and honoured those who were shot at dawn. I therefore urge the House to support the Lords amendment.

Ben Wallace: As a Lancashire MP, I join in the tribute paid to the soldier of the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster Regiment who was killed in Basra on Monday. He will have been doing his best for, and with, his comrades, and carrying out the task that the Government sent him there to perform. We shall not forget him on Sunday, and I hope that his family derive some comfort from the personal support that I know that the Secretary of State gives to all the victims of the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflict.
	I thank the three Ministers from the Department for staying for the debate. We do not often see the full complement, on either the Opposition or Government Front Benches. The Secretary of State and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces should be congratulated on staying, and I welcome that they have done so.
	War is tragic. It is full of fear, and full of people who do not know what the next day will mean for them. War is confusing, and it separates people from those whom they love, and, very often, young men of all classes and all educations find themselves in positions that they would rather not be in. However, few of them feel that there are people to blame for the position that they are in. They do what they do because they feel that it is the right thing to do at the time. Many of them look back and ask, "Should I have been doing that? Should I have been in Northern Ireland? Should I have been carrying out the wishes of the Government of the day?" However, tragedy—feelings of loss and suffering—is part of war, and that tragedy cannot be picked apart because that suits us by our values of today.
	The case that has been put forward for the pardons is, in my view, misguided. Much of that case is also full of inaccuracies. For example, the fact is that we did recognise shell shock at that time, but what we did not do was treat it correctly. We often took officers out of the field and sent them far back to Blighty, where they received what we now know to have been the wrong treatment. But although we got our medical treatment wrong at the time, should we judge the people of the day because their knowledge of medicine was not as good as ours is now?
	That case is also full of inaccuracies because the names of many of the people for whom pardons are sought have changed—they have fluctuated. It is interesting that the Government cannot produce a definitive list of those who were executed in the war who deserve a pardon. As we know, there is a lack of records. Members of various parties have made it clear that in the cold light of day, perhaps by judicial committee, they could not make decisions on whether a pardon would have been an appropriate way of dealing with some of the problems.
	I am mystified that people convicted of "mutiny and sedition" under section 7 of the Army Act 1881 will be pardoned. Mutiny is not cowardice. Mutiny is not desertion. Mutiny is undermining the very core of military discipline, sometimes for subversive reasons. As many of the French corps and British units in the first world war knew, it can cause catastrophic problems for fighting on the front, and, in the end, it can lead to a breakdown of the whole war effort. I am amazed that a pardon for that has been added.
	It is important that we recognise that these are real offences that have a real impact on war-fighting. In today's world, if a warehouse security guard falls asleep, someone comes in and nicks all the stock. But if someone falls asleep on sentry, they might well condemn their men to death—not only their men in their platoon, but also, perhaps, their men in their company. There are plenty of historical war stories of such events occurring in every conflict; they have occurred in Northern Ireland, and they have happened since time immemorial. This is not the kind of issue that we can just move aside because that suits us. Some of these offences have real consequences for other people who were doing their job: hundreds of thousands of such people have died in the first world war and many other conflicts.
	It is dishonourable for us in this House, in this century, with our values, to decide whether people of that era would have a different view. I was not around in 1918 or 1916. I know that, as a soldier, I would never have the audacity to compare my military experience today with that of those who were in the military nearly 100 years ago. We all face different challenges in different conflicts, and our values will always be different. For us to go back into the first world war and pick and choose what suits us is an insult to all who fought in that campaign, and all who did their best to make sure that Britain was victorious in a war that would have affected our freedoms if we had failed in it.
	The class issue has already appeared in today's debate. There is a romantic notion that General Melchett was condemning people to death from behind the lines. Many of the men concerned were tried by their peers from their battalions, who themselves had been through the same conflicts. People did not appear from nowhere dressed in nice pressed shirts to judge these men; they were often tried by their peers. We might not like the trial process that they faced, but sometimes they faced those trials because of the conditions that people were in—because they did not have the luxury of being able to leave the front line, as they had to get on with doing their job, which was playing their part in defending Britain and ensuring victory in the first world war. We should not be persuaded by such romantic visions, or by the comedians whom we often see on television.

Kevan Jones: I take on board the hon. Gentleman's point, but that stain is still on the character of those families in working-class communities throughout this country; it has not been erased through the passing of the generations. That might not affect the middle-class homes that the hon. Gentleman might want to represent in this House. But for working-class communities, that stain is there, and it has been there for generations.

Kevan Jones: I rise to support the amendment, which I believe is the correct way to put right a dreadful wrong done to many people in my constituency, and others. I accept and respect the fact that there is an alternative position. It was a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), who explained his position in a well informed, thoughtful and well argued speech, but who also recognised that there must be some form of closure. I disagree with his conclusions, but I respect his position.
	What I cannot accept, however, is what we have heard tonight from Opposition Front Benchers. They have criticised the Secretary of State for taking this decision—I congratulate him, and I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) for his part in the amendment—but they have not got the guts to vote against the amendment tonight. It was open to the Opposition to table amendments to it in another place, but they have not taken that opportunity. That would have been a far more respectable position to adopt.
	The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan)—he is not in his place—sought to imply that, because the three Ministers on the Front Bench have not got military experience, they are somehow dabbling in the military process. If the hon. Gentleman were here, I would tell him that he should take a look at his own Front Benchers. There is the honourable exception of the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who is a naval reservist. I think that the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) made the Air Cadets and no further, and unless—

Andrew Robathan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; I had not intended to rejoin this debate. My point was not to attack the Ministers on the Front Bench, for whom I happen to have—to varying degrees—grudging regard, but to point out that when Major Attlee was Prime Minister and when that famous Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was in power, they took no action. What has changed except the passage of90 years? The hon. Gentleman has been attacking my hon. Friends, but I should point out that we in the shadow Government have a very large number of people with military experience, including myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison), who has been in Iraq, and my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster).

Henry Bellingham: As far as that last set of remarks is concerned, many of us have listened to this argument very carefully, and many of may disagree with parts of the proposal, but we have a right to question the Government, to hold them to account and to ask various questions. Just because we do not go along with everything that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) has said, that does not mean that we should necessarily push the amendment to a vote. I do not understand the logic of what he has been saying.
	I should declare an interest because both my grandfathers fought in the first world war with huge bravery and distinction. My great-uncle also fought in the first world war as a founder member of the Royal Tank Regiment. Umpteen relations of mine fought in the first world war and died. The issue is very emotional.
	We have had an interesting debate tonight. I admire the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), whom I have respected for many years. We have campaigned together in other areas and he has been a marvellous ally in one particular campaign involving constituents who have faced injustice. I greatly admire his tenacity and determination. Obviously we should salute that this evening, because he has worked tirelessly on this matter. I do not agree with where he is coming from and I do not support the conclusions that he has reached, but I still respect him for that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), who is my parliamentary neighbour, made a learned and erudite speech. He knows a huge amount about this subject. He made one point that certainly had resonance, because I remember my grandfather making the same point clear to me when we discussed the issue, which we did many times. My grandfather lived until about 1970. He was badly wounded in 1916. He was then badly gassed the following year and never really recovered. I was quite young—about 12 or so—when he died, but I remember speaking to him at length about this issue. He said that he and his friends fought first for their chums, secondly for their regiment, and thirdly for Queen or King. That was the point that my hon. Friend made: there was a feeling among the millions of people who fought in the first world war that those who let the side down put not just their own lives, but the lives of many others, at risk.
	Successive Secretaries of State have looked at the issue. It is nothing new. I had the privilege and honour of serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind)— he was then the right hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh Pentlands. We looked at the issue in great detail and decided that it would be wrong to reopen the matter and rewrite history. Successive Labour Secretaries of State have done exactly the same. I well remember the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) making it clear that he felt that this was not the right way to go. He argued persuasively and with huge intellectual rigour that pardons should not be granted. I do not know what has changed.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) pointed out, this is a complicated process that involves a great deal of effort and input. With great respect to Labour and Liberal Democrat Members, and indeed some Conservative Members, it beggars belief that Ministers can devote time to this matter—important as they may regard it—when they face so many other priorities and issues. Just look at the huge challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is the huge issue of the vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq that do not have the necessary armour and the issue of helicopter lift capacity. There are all those other massive challenges that my hon. Friend referred to.
	I know, because I have a large number of friends in the armed forces, including five colleagues from university who happen to be brigadiers or generals, that this decision is very unpopular with the armed forces. I am concerned that the trust and respect of the armed forces for the Ministers of Her Majesty's Government will be damaged by this issue. I only hope that that will be got over quickly. As a number of my hon. Friends have pointed out, the decision is totally illogical. It does not quash convictions and it does not remove sentences.

Henry Bellingham: I want to be brief, because we need to make progress. There is a long list of amendments. I am going to wrap my remarks up quite soon.
	What about the 2,700 soldiers who were sentenced to death, but had their sentences commuted? Will they be affected? Will they receive a pardon? We heard about the Farr case, which was moving and tragic. However, every single case is different. If one has a look at the breakdown, as some colleagues have already, out of the 346 soldiers who were executed, 37 were executed for murder and will not benefit from the pardon. I mentioned earlier in an intervention that there were five who were executed for disobedience to a lawful order. One of them was a private in the Royal Norfolks who disobeyed four separate orders, on four different occasions. He was given umpteen warnings. He was sentenced to death by firing squad for disobedience to those lawful orders before he even got near the front, so he certainly could not have suffered from any form of shell shock. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) pointed out, 18 soldiers were sentenced for mutiny and various other offences.
	The issue is complicated and every single case is different, which is why I took the view that perhaps we should have set up a tribunal of Commonwealth judges or learned judges to look at every single case totally separately on its merits. In my judgment, what we are doing is illogical. Whatever colleagues say, if we not rewriting history, we are certainly writing it. What happened in the great war was horrific and tragic, but we are looking at it from a modern-day perspective. We are imposing our modern-day values on events that happened nearly 100 years ago. Of course those men would not have been executed today. In the second world war, there was not a single British soldier executed by firing squad. I gather that one American was executed during the battle of the Bulge. To put that into perspective, 10,000 German soldiers were hung for either desertion or cowardice in the last war and 25,000 Russians were shot by firing squad—probably double that number were shot by the commissars who were attached to each single unit.
	Should we really be questioning the motives and the rationale of the Army commanders in world war one? Should we be questioning the decisions taken by the much reviled Field Marshal Haig? How far back should we go? Should we go back to the Boer war and Breaker Morant, or the Zulu war, or the Crimean war? What other categories of offence will be covered by future initiatives of this kind? What about the British traitors who were hanged during the second world war, such as Lord Haw-Haw and John Amery and many others, who may well not have had a fair trial at the time?
	We have had an interesting and, in many ways, moving debate, with a lot of excellent contributions. Those of us who have doubts about this matter should not be taunted by the other side for not putting it to a vote, because we have asked a lot of sensible questions. Can the Minister really give us a categorical assurance that this measure will not set a precedent? Is this really a one-off? We are all decent, compassionate human beings. Of course we can regret the past and observe the deeds of our ancestors with astonishment, incomprehension and even sad regret. Obviously we can feel only pity towards those luckless soldiers who were executed nearly a century ago. There is little doubt that many of them showed incredible bravery and astonishing mental toughness when they were finally led out to be shot, blindfolded and alone. We have to applaud their courage in extremis. They were as much victims of that war as the three quarters of a million of their comrades, in addition to the millions of other soldiers, who were killed. However, I do not believe that we should reinvent the past to suit our wishes today. That way lies madness. That is why I have serious regrets about what the Government are doing and I am looking forward to the assurances from the Minister.

Derek Twigg: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	We have had a reflective, important and well thought debate. No one could say that the arguments expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House have not been well aired. Strong views have been expressed by many, and passionate views have been expressed by some. This is a difficult issue.
	It is important that I put it on record that the intention of the pardon is to remove the dishonour of execution. It is not intended that it will quash the convictions or sentences. It stands as a recognition that execution was not a fate that servicemen deserved. I cannot make any clearer why we wish to introduce the measure.
	I know that such matters have a great emotional impact on people. We are of course discussing the period of the first world war, which, as the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) made clear, has a particular impact on the nation's consciousness, given the terrible horrors that took place. I never met my grandfather because he died well before I was born, but I have met and talked to veterans of the first world war, so I have some understanding, albeit perhaps not in the greatest depth, of their suffering, fear and bravery and the horror of the events. Hundreds of thousands of people made many sacrifices and went through absolutely unbelievable experiences in the trenches and during the battles that took place.
	On Remembrance Sunday, we will all remember the tremendous courage and sacrifice of those who fought in the first world war, second world war and other conflicts, and the service that they gave. I hope that we can now let the matter rest in peace.
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Lords amendment No. 65 agreed to.

Derek Twigg: I will be brief because I am conscious that Opposition Members want to ensure that their comments about later groups of Lords amendments are put on the record. I thus intend no disrespect to the House by the amount of time for which I shall speak to several groups.
	The Lords amendments are improvements to the drafting of provisions on the offences of mutiny and desertion. They will make the provisions easier forthe layman to understand. We listened carefully to concerns expressed in another place about the way in which the provisions on the offence of mutiny were originally drafted. We agreed that clause 6 could be redrafted so that it would be simpler to understand, not least by including the word "mutiny" in the body of the offence.
	The Lords amendments make no substantive change to the effect of the original measure—mutiny remains both an agreement to resist or overthrow authority, and the act of doing so. Under clause 7, as amended, failure to suppress an act of mutiny will remain an offence, but not failure to suppress an agreement.

Gerald Howarth: As the Minister indicated, the Opposition consider this to be one of the most important issues in the Bill. During the passage of the Bill in this place we tried to persuade the Government that it was necessary under the new arrangements to ensure that the commanding officer remained in the loop, in the event that the proposals as originally set out in the Bill were enacted.
	Our concerns were that under the proposals originally put before the House by the Government, the commanding officer, having lost the right to dismiss a serious charge—that is, essentially, one of murder or rape—would be required on a serious charge simply to inform the service policeman, who would then conduct an investigation, instead of the investigation thatthe commanding officer would previously have undertaken, and that the military policemen undertaking the investigation would report to the Director of Service Prosecutions as to the nature of the investigation and whether he believed that there was sufficient evidence for the Director of Service Prosecutions to proceed.
	Under those arrangements, there was no provision for the commanding officer to be kept in the loop. I pay tribute to the former Chiefs of the Defence Staff who took up the issue and batted with it in another place, together with the noble Lord Ramsbotham, the noble Earl Attlee and the Lord Campbell of Alloway, all of whom, on any reading of the debates in the other place, made a significant contribution not only to the improvement of the Bill, but to the quality of the debate. By the way in which they conducted themselves in the other place, they demonstrated the virtue of having in the other place men and women able to bring to bear on debates such experience and expertise, which would not be available if we moved to an elected upper House. It is important to recognise the contribution made in the other place.
	Much was made in the other place of the importance of maintaining the chain of command, which is essential. I shall attempt to set it out as I understand it, despite not being, as the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) knows, a regular Royal Air Force man, for I had political aspirations and wanted to come to the House, and I was successful in that. The chain of command is an important issue because it goes to the heart of how the Army, in particular, is organised.
	The Army depends upon men and women being prepared to take orders unquestioningly. In return for that unquestioning obedience to orders, the soldier looks to the commanding officer for reassurance that in the event that, acting in good faith, he nevertheless makes a mistake, he will be supported. We were concerned about the original arrangements proposed by the Government because if a soldier faced a serious charge, the arrangements would have prevented the commanding officer from being properly consulted to ensure that he was able to provide the service prosecuting authorities with important background information and to make contact between the commander and the commanded. I make no apology for having sought to insist that we introduce the change, and I am grateful to the Government for accepting the case.
	It is important to keep the commanding officer in the loop. Nevertheless, even with the change, I have reservations. I do not in any way impugn the integrity of Ministers or their advisers, but we are at risk, in this context and in others that we will discuss later, of undermining the chain of command. There was much talk of that in the other place. That is why the amendment was welcomed there.

Derek Twigg: I welcome the support for the amendment and the considered comments that have been made—based, in the case of the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), on considerable experience. I aim to deal with the concerns expressed in the debate.
	I recognise the concern about ensuring that cases best dealt with by the court martial remain within the services system. As the Attorney-General explained in the other place, the Bill includes provisions to prevent a reoccurrence of the unfortunate case of Trooper Williams, to which the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) referred, where a matter considered and excluded from prosecution in the military system was then considered within the civilian system.
	Under clause 126, when the Director of Service Prosecutions has considered a case, he will be able to direct that there shall be no further proceedings in the civilian system as well as in the service system. The Attorney-General also recognised—I entirely agree—that only in exceptional circumstances would a case arising from operational circumstances be dealt with by the UK civilian courts. It remains possible, however, to envisage circumstances in which that might still be viewed as appropriate.
	Let me give the House an example. While on operations abroad, perhaps during peacekeeping, a British soldier and some British civilians abroad are alleged to have committed murder. The Director of Service Prosecutions could look into relevant factors such as whether civilians were themselves subject to law and whether the offence related to possible other criminal activity in the UK. I can imagine that the DSP might want to seek the Attorney-General's advice in such a case and the decision taken could be that it should be handled in the UK civilian courts. That is fully consistent, however, with the DSP having the decision in a case that he has considered on whether to preclude further proceedings.
	On the hon. Member for Newark's question about when the Attorney-General's discretion arises, the prosecuting authority is free to seek his view and ask for a decision at any time before the prosecuting authority reaches a decision. If he decides to prosecute, he makes a direction under clause 126.

Gerald Howarth: A judgment on the Martin case was delivered recently in the European Court of Human Rights. Ministers have held throughout our proceedings that the Bill is compliant. For the sake of brevity, I shall merely say that the case involved a 17-year-old civilian, the son of a serving soldier, who was tried for murder. The trial took place by court martial in Germany after the father had left the service and, indeed, left Germany. The child was taken back there. Can the Minister tell us whether the case will result in a change in the administration of the Service Civilian Court?
	In respect of punishments, there was a debate in the other place about the rules of engagement. The Government decided not to accept the suggestion from the former chiefs that the rules of engagement ought to be cast in law, so that any soldier, sailor or airman acting in pursuance of those rules would be immune from prosecution. It might help the House if the Minister repeated some of the assurances given in the other place, most notably by his noble Friend Lord Drayson, who referred on 11 October to
	"the situation where a soldier makes a mistake".
	Lord Drayson said
	"it is important for me to reassure the Committee that if a soldier acts in combat on his view of the situation, even if it is wrong, he will not be guilty of a crime."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 295.]
	Our soldiers have concerns about the rules of engagement and about the risk of prosecution, about which the armed forces have tried to do something to reassure our soldiers in particular.
	If the Minister could state here that he supported what his noble Friend Lord Drayson said, it will send out a clear message to our armed forces—particularly those on the front line in Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, in Iraq—that they can have confidence in the system, and that provided that they act in good faith and in accordance with their rules of engagement, notwithstanding that those rules are not enshrined in law, they will be supported not only by the chain of command but by the service courts that the Bill seeks to establish.

Derek Twigg: On 24 October, the European Court of Human Rights gave its judgment in the case of Martin. We need to be clear what it decided. The case was about the son of a service man who was tried by court martial in 1995 for the murder of a civilian in Germany. The court martial was subject to the same objections as were found to exist in the Findlay case in 1996, and which were remedied by the Armed Forces Act of 1996. It is no surprise that the European Court also decided in Martin that the court martial was not compliant.
	The European Court did not decide that courts martial should not try civilians, or that they should not try civilian juveniles. But it did state the important principle that a military jurisdiction should only be exercised over civilians if there are "compelling reasons". In the Martin case there was the possibility of civilian trial in the UK, because the charge was murder. The court did not decide whether there had been "compelling reasons" for court martial trial. It did not need to, because as I have said, it decided the case on the basis that the court martial at that time was not compliant. The court did not go into what they thought would be compelling reasons.
	We are looking carefully at the judgment in Martin. We will consider carefully the need for compelling reasons and will seek to ensure that, where court martial trial is adopted, there are compelling reasons for doing so. We shall also consider further the make-up of the court martial in cases involving civilians. There are a number of issues here. We have to ensure that, so far as possible, we have a uniform and consistent system available for all civilians who come within the scope of the Bill. We also need to take into account the need for a court martial to be able to sit abroad.
	The Bill contains a wide power to decide the membership of the court martial in special cases. We were already considering what the membership should be in civilian cases. Hon. Members can be assured that in every respect, we will do what we think this judgment requires.
	Finally, hon. Members will appreciate that the judgment in the case of Martin has potential implications not only for the court martial under the Bill, but also for courts martial convened under the Service Discipline Acts. If, following careful deliberation, we conclude that the judgment requires our current procedures to be modified, we will beable to do so using the alignment powers provided by clause 381.

Gerald Howarth: This is an important group of amendments and we accept that it is part of the Government's response to the Blake report. In the other place, concern was expressed about the impact of the proposed independent commissioner on the chain of command. In the other place, Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig of Radley said:
	"Each time we legislate in a way that implies or indicates that commanders and the command chain should not be involved in a disciplinary or complaints process, a secondary but no less important message is being transmitted...The message is that commanders and the command chain cannot or may not be trusted to dispense discipline fairly."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 393.]
	This is another issue on which he put his finger squarely on the concerns that many of us have about the corrosion of the chain of command.
	I therefore hope that the Minister can give us some assurance that the commissioner will be someone appropriate. In the debate in the other place, Lord Drayson said:
	"Our starting point is that, at the heart of the relationship between service personnel and the chain of command, is that the chain of command is responsible for investigating wrongsand remedying them."—[ Official Report, House of Lords,12 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 410.]
	The amendment will introduce a new commissioner who will have some responsibility divorced from the chain of command, although responsive to it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring(Dr. Fox), the shadow Secretary of State, told the Minister of State on 13 June, when the Blake report was discussed, that we wanted the proposed commissioner to have a military background and, therefore, an understanding of the pressures on the chain of command.
	I am sorry that the Government have not accepted the recommendation, settling only for "an appropriate person". Given that the Government accepted that the director of service prosecutions should be someone with military experience, and given the huge importance of this appointment, I commend—with all the power at my disposal—to the Minister the idea that the appointee should have a military background. I accept that they cannot be a serving officer, but will he tell the House the kind of experience that will be possessed by the ideal candidate?

Gerald Howarth: I understand entirely that the commissioner will be dealing with complaints from soldiers, sailors and air men about bullying, harassment and so on, and that there must be the independent element that the Blake review sought. However, it is very important that the commissioner, whoever that turns out to be, is more than just "the appropriate person": it would be helpful if, like the Director of Service Prosecutions, he were someone with an understanding of the services. I accept that he cannot be a serving military person, but I submit that giving that role to a complete outsider could be difficult for the armed forces, which would not achieve what we all want.

Derek Twigg: I accept that the hon. Gentleman has strong views about who the commissioner should be. The independence of the post is crucial, and it is important that we put that on record. I am happy to listen to any comments that he has to make, but the important thing is to get the best person for the job.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) asked, in relation to function 2, whether the commissioner could recommend further steps to be taken, where that is necessary and practical. The recommendation in the Blake report relates to how a complaint is investigated. It is not the intended function of the commissioner to intervene in the handling of an individual complaint, or to say how it should be investigated. The commissioner will look at how complaints are handled generally, and to include his findings in the annual report.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham also asked, in relation to function 3, whether the commissioner could institute legal proceedings and set aside legally flawed decisions. The commissioner's function relates to the redress of an individual grievance. The Bill rightly gives him no function in the area of prosecutions. As the Government said in reply to the Blake report, the question of whether to prosecute for a serious offence must be for the independent director of service prosecutions. If the commissioner considers that the possibility of prosecution was not being sufficiently considered, there is nothing to prevent him from making his views known to the Secretary of State. However, the decision on prosecutions must be for the Director of Service Prosecutions.
	 It being three hours after commencement of proceedings, Mr. Speaker  put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order[12 December 2005 and this day].
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Remaining Lords amendments agreed to [one with Special Entry].

Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It arises out of the timetabling of proceedings today. I seek your guidance as to how the House might better deal with serious and important issues. The Armed Forces Bill, which we have debated over a long period, will set the framework for the disciplinary arrangements for Her Majesty's armed forces, who are in theatre as we speak, for the next generation at least. It is disappointing that today we have inevitably had to spend quite a long time on the issue of first world war pardons. Hon. Members on both sides of the House wanted to discuss it, but it has inevitably left us short of time for other important matters. I do not think that we were desperately short of time, but I do not think that either Front-Bench or Back-Bench Members were other than economical with the time that we had available.
	It seems a shame that we are locked into such rigid arrangements, Mr. Speaker. How might we introduce, by agreement between both sides, some element of flexibility to allow the House to deal with matters. All us were anxious to allow the debate to flow; it was not a question of anyone taking up unnecessary time. I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker.

Henry Bellingham: I rise this evening to present a petition that was gathered by my constituent Mrs. Teresa Kulkarni. I had an Adjournment debate last night, as you know, Mr. Speaker, and I pointed out that Teresa Kulkarni raised a staggering 129,387 signatures on her petition, which was delivered to No. 10 Downing street last Wednesday. I do not have all the signatures here, but I have a portion of them. The petition says that the undersigned believe that freely available fireworks present danger and nuisance to people, property and animals. They believe that the suffering that they cause and the cost to emergency services and individuals are totally avoidable. Whilst they believe this, they do not wish to prevent the enjoyment of traditional festivals; therefore the petitioners request that the House of Commons brings in legislation so that
	1. fireworks are restricted to licensed displays only at fixed times of the year
	2. To include garden fireworks in the restricted category
	3. To reduce the decibel limit to a maximum of 85 db for all fireworks
	4. To make it illegal to use or possess fireworks without a valid licence."
	 To lie upon the Table.

David Anderson: It would be impossible to have any debate on social housing without recognising the fact that we have spent the past 30 years in a state of upheaval. Social housing has been in constant flux. At the same time, there has been massive change in the social attitudes and needs of the people of our country. We have seen the evolutionof one-parent families, the development of single occupancy and the breakdown of traditional family frameworks. At the same time, we have seen the sell-off of social housing and the sad failure to match demand with adequate supply. We have seen the development of various forms of public ownership and private ownership, which has led to serious political differences right across the board.
	I should not have to ask whether our attention has been diverted from the real task of providing good-quality affordable homes for people to live in while we have been discussing the ownership of those homes. It is against that background that I want to bring some good news to the House. In Gateshead, the borough in which my constituency lies, the council still has strategic responsibility for housing. However, in 2004 it set up a housing company as an arm's length management organisation—an ALMO—which has responsibility for housing offices, neighbourhood relations, rent and income, leasehold services, refurbishments, of which there are many good examples, repairs, maintenance and other housing management services.
	With a great big agenda that included spending a quarter of a billion pounds to improve the houses of the people of Gateshead, why has the council produced the Gateshead young persons' housing plan? There are three reasons: first, it is absolutely the right thing to do; secondly, the council was instructed by the Audit Commission that if it wanted to improve from a two-star to a three-star ALMO, it would have to do much more work with that age group; and, thirdly, the plan is in line with a Government-driven initiative for councils to develop plans for children and young persons.
	The key to the plan is wide liaison and consultation, starting with the company itself. It talked first and foremost to the 1,335 young people aged between 16 and 24 who already held tenancies. It worked with the young women's outreach project, with youth information services and, critically, with the Gateshead youth assembly, positively led by Valerie Ender who is a credit to her region and to the young people she looks after. The company worked with the Connexions team on career progress and with the Gateshead children and young people's partnership and the teenage parents partnership. It worked with Gateshead college, the Hit squad and Skills for People— young disabled persons' groups—and the learning support group at Gateshead college, which also supports disabled people. The black and minority ethnic forum was involved, as were the Gateshead Bangladeshi and Muslim societies; and most importantly, the company worked with the Gateshead youth offending team.
	Between them, those organisations developed a vision:
	"Working with young people to provide excellent homes, communities and housing services for the tenants of tomorrow."
	That vision was based on values that were customer-focused, innovative and professional. The company involves customers in all its work; it is honest, accountable and transparent and shows respect and care for the people for whom and with whom it works.
	A massive commitment has been made to the organisation's employees; they are involved and their work is celebrated. The company is positive and responsive and tries its best at all times to achieve the very best for the people for whom it works. Its employees are well motivated, well trained and committed. As a listening and learning organisation, the company embraces equality and involves the whole community.
	The aim of the plan is clear: to improve the chances of young people in Gateshead and allow them to find out about living on their own. A key part of that process is that young people actually work for the company. The company makes it easy for young people to work with it and to join its board—an issue to which I shall be happy to return later.
	The important thing is to work with young people on the ground and find out who they are. About 46,000 people in Gateshead are aged under 19 and 29,000 of them are of school age. Fifty-nine per cent. of young people said that improved housing would make their lives and neighbourhoods better. Ninety per cent. of children born in Gateshead live in a house or bungalow, but 12 per cent. of them are likely to be living in overcrowded conditions. Five per cent. of young people have a health problem or disability. Almost 2.5 per cent. of them are from an ethnic minority background.
	There is positive news for young people in Gateshead. Youth crime has fallen for the past three years. Only 8 per cent. of 16 to 19-year-olds are unemployed or not in further education or training; that is too many, but we are working on it. Our GCSE results are among the top 10 in the country and the improvements since 1997 mean that we are among the best—a massive plus for the children and those who care for them. The percentage of young people leaving school at 16 with no qualifications has gone down from 8 per cent. in 2001 to 4.5 per cent. in 2005. Under-18 pregnancy rates are down by 22 per cent., and that is the biggest reduction in the north-east; it is far better than the national average drop of 11 per cent.
	The situation is not perfect, although hon. Members might think so, given the way in which I have spoken. Local young people face problems, as do young people across the country. Some face issues of homelessness or rooflessness; some do not have enough money coming in; some have poor or no credit ratings, or have no bank account. They may face unemployment and low pay. They have to abide by the housing benefit rules for under-25s, and they may not know how to use housing services or get help. Rents are very high in the private sector, and young people may have no furniture, may never have lived independently before, and may have absolutely no experience of being a tenant.
	The Gateshead Housing Company went deeper in its work with young people. In February and March of this year, it consulted widely with various groups of young people, who realised that the key issue was that they needed more information and guidance. To provide that information and guidance, the housing company committed itself to promoting more effectively the housing services available directly to young people. It agreed to provide appropriate information as and when it was needed, so that young people could make informed decisions when considering where to live. It also agreed to improve access to information and advice about housing services, and as part of that, it developed a multilingual service, and a service for people with sight impairments.
	The housing company has provided a great deal of help and support. It realises that maintaining a tenancy is not easy, particularly for young people, who may never have faced that worry before. The accessible information has now been provided, and people are using it. A key part of the process is the MyPad website, which is advertised on the card that I have in my hand. It is a website for, and developed by, young people; they are responsible for it, and it provides access to information.
	More than 80 per cent. of young people clearly said that it would help them if they had access to IT services, so that they could find out more. The housing company has responded to that positively. There is a clear need to work with other agencies, including those that I listed earlier. Such work is being developed, and the housing company is taking that seriously. It is identifying individuals who will be the key persons working with its partners, so that there is no blurring of who does what.
	There is a clear problem with housing, and thereis a lack of both permanent and temporary accommodation. The sad thing about the company's plan is that it does not provide us with one brick, one key to a door, or one extra house; however, it does give shape to what must be done. It is accepted that waiting lists are too long, and that it takes too long to get a property. It is accepted that not enough council accommodation is available in the areas where young people want to live. Young people who are offered accommodation often find that it is outside the areas where they want to live, which means that they will be away from their family and their support network. There is a lack of emergency accommodation for young people, too. Some of the housing stock is not at its best, although we are in the middle of a massive refurbishment programme. On some estates, the paintwork on houses is in poor condition. Problem neighbours are a concern for young people, too, and the repair service is perceived to carry out poor quality repairs, and to take too long to complete them.
	A key question put to the young people was, "What do you want?" Their answers were clear, and they made simple but important points. They wanted to live in houses on estates and in communities where they felt safe and secure, and they wanted to live in a clean house in a clean area. They wanted to live in a house that had been improved, and that was furnished. They want more options—they do not want to be pushed into a place and to be given Hobson's choice, but want a real choice. They want places to be open at hours that are helpful to them. They want services to be available not when they are at work or in education, but when they need them. They also want a new letting system, because the previous system, which was based on points, was hard to use and to understand. They need more information on the whole agenda, too.
	I have set out the background of the problems that the housing company faces. It has set up a plan to show how, over the next three years, it will fulfil its commitment and deliver on the agenda that the young people have set. I now turn to what the company has done. It says that it will concentrate on young persons' issues first, and it has appointed a lead officer who will develop young people's priorities. That will ensure that the company complies with the key age discrimination legislation. It will regularly scrutinise young people's services to make sure that people are satisfied with them, and it will listen to their complaints.
	Young people are encouraged to join the company both as employees and as officers who run the company, thus giving them a democratic say in the shaping of the future for themselves and for other people living in Gateshead. We need to find out what problems prevent young people from using the company's service and try to solve them. A task force must be given the job of identifying any barrier that young people face when accessing the service. We must ensure that company employees have the required information so that they can provide advice tailored to young people's needs, which are different from those of the rest of the population. Advice and information about housing services in Gateshead must be accessible. As I said before, a web-based housing information resource has been developed, based on the needs of the young people concerned, and it has had an extremely positive effect in promoting available housing.
	Young people have been encouraged to take part in training so that we can learn about what they need. Their views are paramount. Support is always available so that they can become involved, and dedicated training is resourced directly from the housing company budget. The company is keen to work with Connexions—the careers organisation for young people in the north-east—the council, young people's support organisations and groups to improve things for young people in the area. We must make sure that the company's representatives are involved at every level with various organisations so that people's needs are heard loud and clear and are addressed.
	Finally, the company has made sure that the employment of young people is a positive thing. Working for the company should be a positive goal and career step for people leaving university and school. The company's recruiting practices are very much targeted on a young work force. That approach is unique in its detail—if not unique among all housing providers, certainly among arm's length management organisations. We should share good practice. Most of us who have been involved in public services and politics for years have been to thousands to meetings at which we said that we should share good practice, only to go away and forget all about it. The truth is, the company provides an example of good practice, and it is the way forward. We should take it on board and develop it.
	When the housing company is contacted by a young person, it asks them whether they are sure that they want to rent social housing. Many young people think that all they need to do is find the rent—they are not aware of the reality of running a home. They could therefore take the wrong step, so the company works with other organisations, and asks young people whether it can help them to stay at home. Are there family breakdowns at home, or are there financial problems? It tries to help them in different ways. I have been scratching my head, because I cannot imagine another company telling someone not to take their product. A company selling new cars would not suggest that someone take the bus or use their bike. The housing company, however, has a genuine interest in helping younger people.
	The three-year programme will be reviewed annually, with the Gateshead youth assembly playing a key role. Hopefully, the lessons that are learned will be put to good use. I hope that the Minister will agree to come to Gateshead so that she can see what is going on. Hopefully, Ministers will learn from the project and share that knowledge with everyone, as I am trying to do tonight. I am proud to report that the latest member of the ALMO board is a 25-year-old by the name of Christian Jules Siassia, who was appointed this week. Six years ago, he came to the UK as an asylum seeker. He finally got refugee status in 2004. He is a member of the company's black and minority ethnic housing forum. He is working as a housing professional in Newcastle—as a trainee housing officer—and he is now on the board. If that is not the sort of thing that we should welcome, I do not know what is.
	I never believed in John Major's world, where people played cricket and drank warm beer. I came from a world like you did, Mr. Speaker: an industrial background, where we lived back-to-back. I was10 years old before we had a house with a bath in it and an inside toilet. I come from the generation that saw council housing as a liberating factor. We were proud of the strides that my Government and my party took post-war to build council houses—to make council housing and social housing a byword for quality, security and safety. I hope that developments and programmes of the sort that I have been talking about can bring about a new start for us in delivering quality social housing, so that the phrases "council house" and "council estates" are not synonymous with sink estates and second-class housing, but are a genuine positive option—not only for the young people of today, but for everybody.

Meg Munn: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) on raising this important issue and I also the welcome given to the work that he referredto by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead,East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson). The Government always like to hear good news, and we were given a very impressive list of the work that has been undertaken so far and the work that is promised in Gateshead.
	A decent home for everyone is a key Government policy. That is set out in the 2005 "Sustainable Communities: Homes for all" statement. Our vision of sustainable communities is to provide places that offer everyone a decent home that they can afford, in a community in which they want to live and work both, now and in the future. We appreciate that increasing property values and rents, together with a shortage of affordable homes, have made things difficult for everyone setting foot on the housing ladder for the first time, but for many—
	 It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn .—[Jonathan Shaw.]

Meg Munn: But for many of our young and more vulnerable people, the problems can be daunting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon described very well. To set up on their own with limited knowledge, money or assistance is a frightening and bewildering prospect for many young people. It could be that family problems have forced them into a world of tenancies, leases, rent and responsibilities for which they are ill-prepared. Low wages, unemployment, the lack of a bank account, no credit history—all can make that situation much more difficult. If we fail our young people, they may end up homeless and, as such, much more likely to fall victim to a vicious spiral of crime, drugs and perhaps even violence.
	In the 2002 report "Reducing Re-offending by Ex-Prisoners", the social exclusion unit found that the presence of stable accommodation for young people can mean a reduction of more than 20 per cent. in the reoffending rate. Everyone has a right to a decent home, and the Government want everyone to be given the help and advice needed to make a good start. So we are allocating more than £80 million to local authorities over the next two years to invest in further homelessness prevention schemes; such schemes have already demonstrated considerable success.
	As well as dealing with people who are homeless, we must work to help people to avoid becoming homeless. There needs to be co-ordinated working between children's services and housing services to address young people's specific needs, as they often go beyond housing needs alone. Young people are particularly vulnerable if they do not have help and support in establishing a structured lifestyle. I commend the work being done in Gateshead on this issue.
	My hon. Friend described how the organisation's first step is to question the young person to see whether this is the right step for them, and whether there is a better alternative. He might not know that I used to be a social worker. I worked with young people who often did not have an alternative, and I saw first hand how they would struggle in a new tenancy to deal with issues that, frankly, had never occurred to them. They wanted their own space, which is understandable, but they often found that dealing with loneliness—let alone the problems associated with paying bills—could become simply too much. Many young people struggle to sustain that first tenancy, so my hon. Friend was right to identify this issue.
	On housing provision, which my hon. Friend also rightly raised, we are working to achieve the decent home targets in the public and private sectors. We have invested more than £20 billion of public money in improving council housing since 1997, and more than £40 billion will have been invested by 2010. Since 1997, we have also levered in an additional £7.4 billion through borrowing by housing associations. We have increased the number of decent social homes by over 1 million, and increased the proportion of vulnerable households in the private sector who have a decent home to 66 per cent. We continue to seek ways of delivering more affordable housing and of increasing the building rate for new homes. There is a great deal more to do, but we have to do more than just deal with the physical fabric. Everyone, regardless of age or background, has a right to a decent, safe and secure home. It was no surprise to hear from my hon. Friend that young people raised these issues when they were asked what they wanted from their accommodation.
	The Government recognise that a stable home isa key factor in helping to create a sustainable community, and that it provides stability, security and safety. We are working to create sustainable communities in which everyone has respect for others and is respected. If we want young people to develop respect for others, we have to respect them and help them to respect themselves by guiding them in their first steps to developing a secure home.
	We emphasise the need for consultation and community involvement in housing matters, but we must not forget the views of those who are not yet part of the housing market. It can be hard to draw out the wishes of young people, especially those for whom housing is a new thing—something that they have not previously discovered. Any efforts to be innovative in dealing with the housing needs of young people are to be welcomed. That is why I commend the excellent Gateshead strategy that my hon. Friend has made the centrepiece of his Adjournment debate. I am pleased that Gateshead has taken the initiative in addressing the housing needs of young people by consulting them thoroughly in the preparation of the housing plan.
	It is an important fact in delivering public services that if we talk to people about how those services should be delivered, generally the service is much better. Just because the service users are younger than a great many other users does not mean that they should not be consulted. What is impressive about this approach is that a great deal of thought has been put into finding out the views and opinions of lots of young people from different backgrounds and different ethnic backgrounds, and of young people with disabilities. The plan is comprehensive and enables Gateshead to go forward confidently.
	As my hon. Friend said, the Gateshead Housing Company is the two-star arm's length management organisation that manages Gateshead council's homes. It is notable that in its inspection, it was viewed as having good prospects for taking those further steps. The development of this kind of plan is evidence of that. Together with the council, it is working proactively and is spending more than £1 million a week on improving homes. In particular, I commend its excellent website, as both my hon. Friends have rightly done. I had a quick look at it myself yesterday and found that it was easy to navigate. The address www.mypadgateshead.co.uk is helpful and user-friendly. If you ever find yourself with a moment to spare at your computer, Mr. Speaker, you too will find that that website is well worth a visit.
	Our newly published White Paper "Strong and Prosperous Communities" will further enhance the quality and responsiveness of local services. It offers a future in which communities, including young people, will be empowered to have more control over services, getting better information and being more engaged in shaping the places where they live. We have established regional housing boards in the English regions that have already shown an ability to address strategic and local issues in a more direct and responsive manner. We are also encouraging local authorities to co-operate in the production of costed, prioritised sub-regional housing strategies that will identify the key areas where spending will be focused. The Government are moving to provide more long term certainty over funding by allocating funds to regions over a three-year period.
	The scale of the issues that need to be addressed by regional housing boards is daunting, so it is essential that effective partnerships are established to draw in and harness private sector funding and support. We need to be flexible and innovative in our approach and to develop effective new ways of working. That essentially means that we need to increase house building rates and address the vexed issue of stock renewal. We need to improve and maintain the quality of existing stock by achieving and going beyond the decent homes target and we need to meet specific community and social needs, particularly among vulnerable groups.
	In the north-east in particular, we need to ensure that we can improve the quality of housing on offer by a balance of new building, repair and replacement. We must ensure that a suitable range of types and sizes of property is provided, based on a clear understanding of local needs and aspirations. That is why the Government have emphasised the importance of robust and up-to-date housing market assessments in the preparation of housing strategies.
	It is too simple to think of the solution to housing problems as being achieved simply by building more new homes. Examining the whole stock is an important approach to take the work forward. We need to understand how the market is working in areas, as well as population changes and migration. We need to know more about the quality of existing stock and, above all, we need to understand the needs and aspirations of householders—both existing householders and those to come. Gateshead has thus done considerable work by examining the aspirations of young people. Some of those young people might not become householders for a considerable time, but such planning for the future is enormously important.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon asked something of Ministers, which is always a good reason to apply for an Adjournment debate. On this occasion, it will not be too difficult to give him the response that he wants. He asked whether I would make a visit. The work is very impressive, so I give a commitment that a Minister from the Department for Communities and Local Government will visit Gateshead to learn about what is going on. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that spreading good practice is important, so it is useful if Ministers are able to see such practice for themselves. A Minister from the Department will thus make a visit as soon as that is possible.
	I am sure that that Minister will want to meet the newest member of the board. Again, it is impressive that Gateshead not only asked young people what they wanted on one occasion, but is ensuring that the voice of young people is part of the ongoing work and management by having a young person on the board. Such practice is to be commended and the Government would certainly welcome it being followed elsewhere.
	I once again commend both my hon. Friends for their support for the work. I congratulate Gateshead on producing the report, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon for giving me the opportunity to discuss this important issue.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twelve minutes past Ten o'clock.